The Fugitive (1993 film)

The Fugitive
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Andrew Davis
Screenplay by	Jeb Stuart David Twohy
Story by	David Twohy Roy Huggins (Characters)
Produced by	Arnold Kopelson
Starring	Harrison Ford Tommy Lee Jones
Cinematography	Michael Chapman
Edited by	Dennis Virkler David Finfer Dean Goodhill Don Brochu Richard Nord Dov Hoenig
Music by	James Newton Howard
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date	August 6, 1993 (1993-08-06)
Running time	130 minutes
Country	Template:Film US
Language	English
Budget	$44 million
Box office	$368,875,760

The Fugitive is a 1993 American thriller film based on the television series of the same name. The film was directed by Andrew Davis and stars Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones.

The story opens as Richard Kimble (Ford) is wrongfully convicted of the murder of his wife. Soon after, Kimble escapes from custody and sets out to prove his innocence and bring those who were responsible to justice whilst being pursued relentlessly by a team of US Marshals, led by Deputy Samuel Gerard (Jones).

The movie garnered critical and commercial success, with worldwide box office takings of $368,875,760 from a $44 million budget. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, a rarity for a movie associated with a television series, and Jones won for Best Supporting Actor. It presently holds a 94% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a rating of "universal acclaim" from Metacritic. It was followed by a sequel, US Marshals, in which Jones reprised his role as Gerard.

Plot

Dr. Richard Kimble (Ford), a respected vascular surgeon in Chicago, comes home one night to find his wife, Helen (Sela Ward), fatally wounded by an intruder, a one-armed man. Kimble fights with the killer, but the man escapes. All the circumstantial evidence suggests Kimble is guilty of the crime: there is no evidence of a break in, his fingerprints are on the gun, he is the beneficiary of Helen's lucrative life insurance and her misunderstood 9-1-1 call appears to name him as her killer. Kimble is convicted of first-degree murder, for which he is sentenced to death. On his way to death row, several prisoners attempt an escape. In the struggle which follows, their bus crashes off the road and into the path of an oncoming train. Kimble barely escapes the bus's destruction and flees into the night.

A group of US Marshals arrive, led by Deputy Samuel Gerard (Jones), to take charge of the hunt for the fugitives while the injured are taken to a nearby hospital. Kimble sneaks into the same hospital to treat his wounds and change his appearance. While leaving the hospital, he is recognized by the injured guard, but escapes in an ambulance. Gerard and his team blockade a tunnel through a nearby dam to stop Kimble's escape, but Kimble abandons the vehicle and climbs into the storm water system. Kimble is eventually cornered by Gerard above the outlet of the dam spillway. Kimble dives over the edge and swims downstream. Most of the search parties give up Kimble for dead, but Gerard persists and is proven correct when a tapped phone call to his lawyer puts him back on Kimble's trail.

Kimble returns to Chicago to find the murderer and receives some money from his friend, a fellow physician named Dr. Charles Nichols. Posing as a janitor, Kimble enters Cook County Hospital's prosthetic department to obtain a list of people who had their prosthetic arm repaired shortly after his wife's murder. Gerard realizes that Kimble must be looking for the one-armed man and begins a similar search to anticipate Kimble's next move. While at the hospital, Kimble notices a critically ill boy who is being misdiagnosed by the junior doctors in the emergency room, and sends him into emergency surgery, which saves his life. When later confronted about it by a doctor (Julianne Moore), he flees as she calls security.

Kimble goes to the Cook County Jail to meet a one-armed man accused of armed robbery, but sees he is not the murderer. Gerard and his team also go to the jail with the same suspicion, and Gerard spots Kimble as he is leaving. A chase ensues, in which Gerard fires several shots at Kimble which are stopped by bulletproof glass. Gerard chases Kimble into Chicago's St. Patrick's Day parade where Kimble barely escapes. He then visits the home of the next person on the list, a former police officer named Frederick Sykes. Kimble confirms the man is the murderer and finds he is employed by a pharmaceutical company that is working on a new drug called Provasic. Kimble had investigated the drug and discovered that it caused liver damage, which would have prevented it from being approved by the FDA. He also finds that Nichols, who is leading the drug's development, arranged a cover-up, and ordered Sykes to kill Kimble (his wife's death was incidental). Gerard follows Kimble to Sykes's home and draws the same conclusion.

As Kimble takes an L train to confront Nichols, Sykes attacks him, and in the ensuing struggle, Sykes shoots a transit cop before being subdued and handcuffed to a wall by Kimble. Moments later, Kimble interrupts Nichols's speech, accusing him of falsifying his data. They begin to fight while being chased by Gerard and hostile Chicago police, who believe Kimble murdered the transit cop aboard the train, and are instructed to shoot him on sight. When Kimble, Nichols, and Gerard are all in the hotel's laundry room, Gerard calls out that he knows about the conspiracy organized by Nichols. Hearing this, Nichols turns to shoot Gerard but at the last moment Kimble hits him from behind, saving Gerard's life. Kimble is taken into custody, since he was still technically a fugitive, despite his innocence. Once inside the car Gerard unlocks his handcuffs as they are driven away.

Cast

Actor	Role
Harrison Ford	Dr. Richard Kimble
Tommy Lee Jones	Deputy Marshal Samuel Gerard
Sela Ward	Helen Kimble
Julianne Moore	Dr. Anne Eastman
Joe Pantoliano	Deputy Marshal Cosmo Renfro
Andreas Katsulas	Frederick Sykes
Jeroen Krabbé	Dr. Charles Nichols
Daniel Roebuck	Deputy Marshal Robert Biggs
L. Scott Caldwell	Deputy Marshal Erin Poole
Tom Wood	Deputy Marshal Noah Newman
Ron Dean	Detective Kelly
Joseph F. Kosala	Detective Rosetti
Miguel Nino	Chicago Cop #1
John Drummond	Newscaster
Tony Fosco	Chicago Cop #2
Joseph F. Fisher	Otto Sloan
James Liautaud	Paul
David Darlow	Dr. Lentz
Jane Lynch	Dr. Kathy Wahlund
Nick Searcy	Sheriff Rawlins
Neil Flynn	Transit Cop

Production

Although almost half of the film is set in rural Illinois, a large portion of the principal filming was actually shot in Jackson County, North Carolina in the Great Smoky Mountains. The scene involving Kimble's prison transport bus and a freight train wreck was filmed along the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad just outside of Dillsboro, North Carolina. Riders on the excursion railroad can still see the wreckage on the way out of the Dillsboro depot. Scenes in a hospital after Kimble escapes were filmed at Harris Regional Hospital in Sylva, North Carolina. Cheoah Dam was the location of the scene where Kimble jumped. In one scene, a road sign pointing to Murphy can be seen.

The rest of the film was shot in Chicago, Illinois, including some of the dam scenes, which were filmed in the remains of the Chicago freight tunnels (as well as Deals Gap, North Carolina). The "one-armed man" lived in the historic Pullman neighborhood of Chicago. Harrison Ford used the pay phone in the Pullman Pub, at which point he climbs a ladder and runs down the roofline of the historic rowhouses toward the one-armed man's house. There are several other scenes that show the rowhouses of the historic neighborhood. During the St. Patrick's Day Parade chase scene, Then-Mayor Richard M. Daley and then-Illinois Attorney General Roland W. Burris are briefly shown as participants. One night scene under the "El" tracks showed Kimble exiting an alley by 130 N. Wells St., with "Chicago Memorial" covering the then-Illinois Bell Building sign.

Reception

The Fugitive opened strongly in the United States box office, grossing $23,758,855 in its first weekend and holding the top spot for six weeks. It eventually went on to gross an estimated $183,875,760 in the US, and $368,875,760 worldwide.

It also received enthusiastic reviews from film critics. As of July 2009, it received a 94% score and has been certified "Fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes and a score of 86 or "universal acclaim" from Metacritic. Roger Ebert gave it 4 out of 4 stars, calling it "one of the year's best films".

A few reviewers said it was marred by the ending, which introduced conspiracy thriller elements.

Awards

The film was nominated for the following Academy Awards:

Subject	Nominee	Result	Lost Against
Best Supporting Actor	Tommy Lee Jones	Won
Best Picture	Arnold Kopelson	Nominated	Schindler's List
Best Cinematography	Michael Chapman
Best Film Editing	Dennis Virkler David Finfer Dean Goodhill Don Brochu Richard Nord Dov Hoenig
Best Original Score	James Newton Howard
Best Sound Effects Editing	John Leveque Bruce Stambler		Jurassic Park
Best Sound	Donald O. Mitchell Michael Herbick Frank A. Montaño Scott D. Smith

Jones also received numerous other awards for his role, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture. Director Andrew Davis received "Best Director" nominations at that year's Golden Globe and Directors Guild of America Awards (but was not honored with a similar nomination at the Academy Awards). Ford was also nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance.

American Film Institute Lists

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies - Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills - #33
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:
  • Dr. Richard Kimble - Nominated Hero
• AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores - Nominated
• AFI's 10 Top 10 - Nominated Mystery Film

Novelization and remake

Jeanne Kalogridis wrote a mass-market paperback novelization of the film. She worked from the original screenplay, which eschews most of the humorous wisecracks spoken on film. Her novel looks more closely at some of the film's leading characters, especially Gerard and his newest subordinate. The film was also made into the Telugu film Criminal and the Malayalam film Nirnayam.

Sequel

Jones returned as Gerard in a sequel released in 1998, U.S. Marshals, which also featured Wesley Snipes, Robert Downey Jr., Joe Pantoliano, Daniel Roebuck and Tom Wood. While the second film also features Gerard's team of marshals hunting down an escaped fugitive accused of murder, it does not involve Ford as Kimble or the events of the first film. However, the fictional hospital at which Kimble worked, Chicago Memorial, is featured.

External links

• The Fugitive at IMDb
• The Fugitive at AllMovie
• The Fugitive at Box Office Mojo
• The Fugitive at Rotten Tomatoes